We'll still call Australia home, says Murdoch as News flies off

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News Corp, Australia's largest newspaper company, technically
left the country for good yesterday. But its 73-year-old chairman
wants Australians to know he has not abandoned them.

"It is not just that we call ourselves an Australian company;
the better indicator is that is how others see us," Rupert Murdoch
told shareholders at News's AGM in Adelaide, where it all
began.

But as he spoke there was a sense of history not lost on those
closest to him, among them his daughter, Prudence MacLeod, who made
a rare appearance at the meeting.

She is the only child from his marriage to the late Patricia
Booker and the first of his six children.

"It's sad but exciting, and it's historic," Ms MacLeod said.
"But there will be a meeting every year so that's nice."

Ms MacLeod, who sat in the front row next to Mr Murdoch's
sister, Janet Calvert-Jones, said the connection with Adelaide
would be maintained. "I mean it's an Australian company, at least
in everyone's head," she said.

Despite some complaints about News's low dividend and
disappointment that Australian investors would lose some tax
advantages, shareholders overwhelmingly approved a resolution to
reincorporate in Delaware.

The $65 billion company long ago outgrew its Australian base and
says it hopes its move to the US, where it already earns the bulk
of its profits, will attract big US fund managers.

Its decision to incorporate in Delaware, a state with some of
the weakest protection for small shareholders in the US, also
solidifies the Murdoch family's 30 per cent control.

But yesterday, Mr Murdoch - who received the keys to the city of
Adelaide on Monday - was more interested in talking about matters
of the heart.

"Let me state for the record, our Australian businesses will
continue to be an integral part of the larger News Corporation,"
the chairman said.

"We have been in the Australian newspaper business a long time.
The reincorporation in no way marks a retreat from the Australian
market. For as long as my family is a major shareholder in this
company - and let me assure you that will be a very, very long
time, as far as we are concerned - News Corporation will always be
defined by an Australian spirit.

"It is from Australia that this company derives its
entrepreneurial energy, brashness, and as you walk through our New
York corridors, often our accents."

From his first day as a publisher in Adelaide back in 1954, to
his push into the UK newspaper markets in the 1970s and '80s and
finally his decision to take on rival media players in US
publishing, free-to-air and pay television, Mr Murdoch has been a
force to be reckoned with.

Building on his father Keith's more modest media empire, Rupert
went on to become one of the most politically influential media
barons.

Now his sons Lachlan and James are involved in the business. But
it's unclear if investors will feel so warmly about the company
when Rupert is not in charge.

Before heading out of the meeting for tea and biscuits
yesterday, some shareholders wondered aloud whether News's decision
to set up shop in Delaware was Mr Murdoch's first step towards
passing control of the company to his sons.